1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus having a transparent toner and a white toner.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrophotographic image forming apparatuses form an electrostatic latent image by scanning light onto a photosensitive body charged to a uniform electric potential, developing the electrostatic latent image with a predetermined color of toner, and then transferring and fusing the developed image to and on a printing medium, thereby printing a desired image. In general, four colors of toners, such as yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), and black (B), are used in electrophotographic color image forming apparatuses, and four developing units are used to develop the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive body with these four colors of toners.
A toner is manufactured based on a plastic resin, which has some gloss. Since printed images may have portions that use toner and other portions that do not use toner, the printed image may have inconsistencies with respect to glossiness and appearance. In other words, the toner adds gloss to the printed image where the toner is attached, but a background region of the printed image to which the toner is not attached has no gloss. In addition, when a toner-coverage area of the printed image is higher, the concentration of gloss is correspondingly higher, which affects the visual quality of the image. U.S. Patent Application No. 20060127134 discloses an image forming apparatus featuring a transparent image forming station to improve the gloss of a printed image by employing developing devices to develop electrostatic images with color toners and a developing device to develop an electrostatic image with a transparent toner.